‘Sherlock’s Andrew Scott: “Moriarty Is Dead”

It must be tempting, having watched Moriarty shoot himself in the head at the climax of the last episode of Sherlock, just in order to force his opponent Sherlock Holmes to enact his own apparant demise, to conclude that if one of these superior minds could have escaped unharmed, surely both could. Sherlock managed it, after all, so why not Jim?

Well, despite Benedict Cumberbatch telling the Radio Times recently that the show is “nothing without that dynamic between Holmes and Moriarty,” it seems that, as far as Andrew Scott is concerned at least, that bullet found its mark after all.

He told The Sun: “Moriarty is dead. I don’t think there could have been any better exit for a character like that.”

But does that definitely mean he won’t be back? I mean Sherlock looked pretty dead for a while there too. Well, maybe so, as Andrew went on to explain: “I feel very proud of Sherlock. Moriarty was a very potent character and one the audience really responded to. But it’s important to me that he doesn’t take over. You have to take risks and play as many different things as possible.”

So that’s that then. No more Moriarty. Unless this is all an elaborate ruse by Messrs Gatiss and Moffat to throw us off the scent. Or maybe he really IS dead and they want us to think it’s an elaborate ruse to ensure we tune in when the show comes back in 2013. Or maybe he DOES come back and the other two elaborate ruses are, respectively, double and triple bluffs…

Fraser McAlpine

Fraser has been writing and broadcasting about music and popular culture for over 15 years, first at the Top of the Pops website, and most recently for the NME, Guardian and MSN. He also wrote BBC Radio 1's Chart Blog and reviews albums for BBC Radio 2.
He is Anglophenia's current resident Brit, blogging about British slang and running around the Mall taking snaps of the crowd at the Royal Wedding, as well as reigniting a childhood passion for classic Doctor Who and cramming as much music in as he can manage.
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